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Pair used fake notes to make off with diamond

Two men – a 29-year-old Italian and a 36-year-old Serbian national – faced a prosecutor in Thessaloniki on Tuesday after being detained by police on suspicion of using 200,000 euros in forged bank notes to buy a diamond from a jeweler in the center of the northern port city.

The two men purchased the diamond on Sunday from a 49-year-old jeweler, who only realized that the cash in the suitcase he was given was fake after the pair had gone, with the diamond.

After the jeweler reported the alleged fraud to the police, officers located the pair in a car near the Evzones border crossing, where they were apparently trying to flee into the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia with the gem.

The pair had around 16,000 euros in cash and four cellphones in their possession.